Overview

The Hacker News MCP Server provides comprehensive access to user profile data and activity histories, enabling you to research contributors, track thought leaders, and analyze community participation patterns. This functionality is essential for identifying subject matter experts, understanding user influence, and conducting research on community dynamics.

Accessing User Profiles

To retrieve a user's profile, simply request information about a specific Hacker News username through your AI assistant. The server will return structured data including the user's karma score, account creation date, biographical information (if provided), and links to their activity.

You can ask natural language queries like:

• "Show me the profile for user [username]"
• "What's the karma score for [username]?"
• "Get information about [username]'s Hacker News account"

The server handles the API interaction and presents the data in an easily readable format.

Exploring Activity History

User profiles provide access to complete activity histories, including all submissions and comments made by that user. This capability allows you to:

• Review submission patterns: See what topics and types of content a user typically shares
• Analyze commenting behavior: Understand where and how frequently users engage in discussions
• Track expertise areas: Identify domains where users consistently contribute valuable insights
• Monitor specific contributors: Follow the activity of thought leaders or domain experts

Practical Applications

Identifying Experts

When researching a technical topic, you can find users who frequently contribute informed commentary in that area. Review their comment histories to gather insights and perspectives from experienced practitioners.

Competitive Analysis

Track how specific users (such as company representatives or competitors) engage with the community. Monitor their submissions and the reception they receive to understand market sentiment.

Community Research

Analyze patterns in user behavior to understand community dynamics, identify influential contributors, or study engagement trends across different topics and time periods.

Best Practices

Be respectful of privacy: User profiles are public information, but use this data responsibly and ethically.

Context matters: Karma scores and activity levels provide useful signals, but always consider the quality and context of individual contributions rather than relying solely on quantitative metrics.

Combine with other queries: User profile data becomes most valuable when combined with story and comment retrieval to understand the full context of discussions and contributions.

Getting Started

Begin by requesting a user profile through your AI assistant using natural language. The server will retrieve current information and present it in a clear, structured format ready for analysis or further exploration.